A Christmas Abroad
by deepfriedcake
Summary: Fixing Christmas, Season 7. You're welcome.
1. Departure

**Author's Notes:** I guess that this one is a Christmas present to me. (Or actually a birthday present, since I inadvertently had it start on my birthday.) In any case, I can't think of a nicer gift than living in a universe where _Merry Fisticuffs_ and _Santa's Secret Stuff_ doesn't exist. Although it was supposed to be a one-shot, I ran out of time to finish it up, so here's the before Christmas portion and the after Christmas chapter will be coming along later. Happy Holidays!

* * *

It was the day before the day before Christmas, or, as it was better known to Luke Danes, Wednesday. That's because Luke was the type of guy who didn't care how many shopping days were left, or if the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, or if there were still enough whole Christmas cookies in the jar to fill a tray for the carolers. The only reason he might count down the days at all was so he'd know when he'd be able to walk up to a table without tripping over a mass of loaded shopping bags lying on the floor. Or because the end of the holiday season would mean the partial removal of some of the town's overabundance of twinkle lights and the blessed stopping of the piped-in Christmas music in the square. As far as Luke was concerned, January couldn't come fast enough.

Luke concentrated on bringing out plates of food and refilling coffee cups. He ignored the wearing of Christmas sweaters of questionable taste and the hyperactive youngsters being allowed to chug down mugs of cocoa by overindulgent parents. December, he often griped to himself, was nothing but a month of excuses.

Had Luke been more tuned into the diner's atmosphere on that day, he might have sensed an anxious undercurrent beneath the genial Christmas buzz. If he hadn't been so focused on merely trudging through the day, he might have picked up on the fact that something – or some_one_—in their normally cheery little town had gone astray. Even though he often wondered if he shouldn't in fact be the freakin' poster boy for things going south, once again it was proved to him that he rarely had a clue when lives were going to pieces around him.

In fact, it wasn't until the door opened early in the evening and everyone abruptly stopped talking at the same time that he took notice of it at all. Even then it was only because he finally looked up and registered who was standing in the doorway.

Christopher Hayden was standing there in a suit that probably exceeded even Emily Gilmore's expectations, which was in turn mostly covered by a long woolen coat that was perfect for the day before the day before Christmas. A tartan plaid scarf, tucked around his neck with just the right air of carelessness, added to his holiday flair. Luke hated Christopher for an ever-changing variety of reasons, but today he hated him for that coat. And the scarf. And for his gall to be standing there at all, daring to breathe in the diner's air.

On some level Luke heard the noise the coffee pot made as he chunked it down on a nearby table. He even spared a wince at the sound, hoping the carafe didn't break and scald some poor diner with the coffee still in it. But he was focused solely on getting to the interloper at the door.

"You've got some nerve," he growled, getting as close as he dared to the pretty boy's face. It was a careful judging of distance, getting close enough to make the dapper Mr. Hayden feel intimidated, yet not so close that Luke couldn't control his desire to deck him. "You've got some nerve, coming in here."

Movement at knee-level caught Luke's attention. An elfin blonde child peered out behind Christopher's legs, yellow curls tumbling over a blue snowsuit. She spotted Babette at a table and waved to her, excited in the way small children get when they see a familiar face in a strange place.

Now Luke had another reason to hate the jackass. Now he was going to have to be civil to him because his little girl was there. Coerced into silence, Luke continued to glare menacingly.

Christopher appeared to be having some control issues as well. "Do you know where she is?" His jaw unclenched just enough to let the words seethe out.

Just further proof that the guy is a moron, Luke thought. Scornfully he dipped his head down, indicating Kiki or CeeCee or whatever the kid's name was. Seriously, the guy couldn't even keep track of his own daughter? But then, look how well he'd kept up with Rory through the years. 'Nuff said.

Christopher's attitude changed over to sneering contempt. "I'm talking about Lorelai," he disdainfully explained.

"Lorelai?" Confusion made some of Luke's ire dissipate. "What about her?" he asked testily.

"She's…" Christopher broke off the staring contest with Luke and visibly struggled with what to say next. His left hand sought the security of his daughter's shoulder. "She's, uh…She's not around. You haven't seen her, then."

"Not since last month. At the hospital. With April." His stomach automatically twisted, remembering how that ring on her finger had punched him in the gut. "What's that supposed to mean, she's not around?"

Even though he tried to give a careless shrug, worry seemed to be overpowering all of Christopher's actions. "I came home from a quick trip to Boston with G.G. and Lorelai doesn't seem to be…anywhere."

"What do you mean, she's not anywhere? She's got to be around here somewhere." Luke was tired of dealing with this idiot already. "She's not at the Dragonfly?"

Christopher bent down and scooped up G.G., holding her close against him, seemingly for comfort. "No. She's not at the Dragonfly. She's not at home."

"She's probably shopping," Luke threw out, still not seeing what the big deal was. "Last minute Christmas things."

"The Jeep's in the driveway," Christopher said quietly, not meeting Luke's eyes.

A cold shadow of fear traced up Luke's spine as realization materialized. "She could have walked into town," Luke insisted, not willing yet to believe anything else.

"No one's seen her today," Chris said, deliberately casual, not wanting to upset his daughter.

Luke turned, scanning over the crowd in the diner, and saw that all eyes were focused on this discussion at the door. No one disputed what Christopher had said. Babette gave him a small, solemn nod of agreement, confirming that this was the truth.

"Sookie," Luke said with conviction, turning back to face him. "Sookie surely knows where she is."

Christopher shook his head.

"Her parents."

"Left for Barbados last weekend."

"Well, what does Rory say?" Luke asked impatiently. Obviously, Rory had the answer.

"Rory left for London on Monday to spend Christmas with Logan." He helped G.G. pull a curl of hair loose from under her collar. "I haven't called her yet because I don't want to trouble her if I don't have to."

"So what are you saying?" The words came out harsh and angry because of the apprehension he didn't want to admit was already present and getting ready to explode in him. "Are you saying she's _missing_?"

"I'm saying that no one's seen her since sometime yesterday afternoon." Chris nodded grimly. "That's why I'm here, talking to you, because you are literally the last person I want to come to about this. But I also figure if she'd tell anybody about taking off, it'd be you. So do you know where she is or not?"

Luke shook his head slowly, feeling out of sync with what was going on. "Yesterday afternoon?" he repeated, feeling sick.

"She was in Doose's, getting some groceries. She brought them home. There's stuff all over the kitchen, like she was in the middle of putting them away. There was melted ice cream and crackers and boxes of macaroni and cheese." Chris waved one arm vaguely, indicating the extent of the mess. "Tea bags scattered all over the floor."

Luke's mouth went dry. His throat tightened up with a sudden feeling of intuition. "Tea bags?" he croaked out.

"I know. Crazy, right?" Chris put G.G. back on her feet, but kept his hand firmly on her head, holding her in place. "I don't even know why we had tea bags. I mean, Lorelai doesn't drink tea."

With effort, Luke forced himself out of his daze. "Sorry. I haven't seen her. Not for weeks." His mind was racing while he watched Christopher nod and start to turn G.G. towards the door. "What are you going to do?" he felt compelled to ask.

"Look around town for a little bit more, although I have to tell you, I can't think of anyplace else to look or anybody else left to talk to." He gave Luke a somber look. "Then I call the police, I guess."

The significance of that statement chilled its way through Luke. "Yeah," he grudgingly agreed. Christopher opened the door and Luke found himself taking a step closer to him. "Listen, if I can help ―" he began awkwardly.

"Just let me know if you hear from her," Chris said with a curt nod, and nudged his daughter out of the diner's door.

Luke stood for a minute, staring out at the snowflakes swirling through the air outside, his wayward thoughts doing the same. In short order he reclaimed the coffee pot and went about his business, trying desperately to pretend that everything was fine.

"Luke." Patty caught at his arm. "Sweetheart, if you knew where she was, you'd tell us, right?"

"Of course," he muttered, shaking off Patty's hand. "At least, I would if she wanted me to," he added, just under his breath, as he walked back to the kitchen.

* * *

The end of the work day. Luke stepped inside his apartment above the diner and stood for a moment in the dark, listening to the silence. Occasionally a gust of wind whipped a scattering of snowflakes around the building, rattling the windows, but otherwise all was quiet. It was late enough that even the recorded carols in the square had stopped for the night.

Luke flipped on the light switch and aimlessly wandered through the apartment. Ever since Christopher's visit he'd been longing to get up here, away from all of the prying eyes. He wanted to hide away someplace where he could think without being interrupted. But now that he was up here, he didn't know what to do. He was afraid that was because, in fact, there was nothing he _could _do.

Lorelai was apparently missing and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. They'd grown so far apart that she could be a stranger to him. Once he'd thought they'd shared some sort of nearly psychic connection; that they'd understood each other in their own weird way better than any couple on the planet. But that was before she'd –

_No, no, no_, he sternly rebuked himself. He'd broken that connection first, when he foolishly refused to tell her about April. All that came later was a direct result of his tunnel vision.

He'd reached the small table in front of the window, where a scaled-down version of a Christmas tree sat. Holiday decorations had rarely made an appearance in his space through the years, but April had brought him this tree. She'd made Anna drive her over before they left to go see her grandmother in New Mexico, insisting that he needed some holiday cheer to tide him over until she got back. She'd picked the location for the tree and had plugged it in, reassuring herself more than him multiple times that they'd enjoy their own Christmas in ten days. It'd be even more special, she'd promised, because they'd be the only ones celebrating then.

The tree was pretty piece of holiday fluff. Even Luke had to admit that. The multicolored lights softened the room. Or maybe knowing that his daughter cared enough about him to bring it to him just softened up his normally Scrooge-like heart.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Luke leaned against the window frame and looked out. The evening had brought only a light dusting of snow, but it was gusty and cold. The idea of Lorelai being out there somewhere — alone or hurt or frightened — sent fear exploding through his chest. He made himself take another deep breath, the same way he probably had a hundred times since Christopher had been in the diner, and reminded himself yet again that Lorelai being missing did not involve him. She was not his wife. She _could_ have been, and she _should_ have been, but she wasn't. Technically that meant it wasn't his place to figure out where she was.

That hadn't stopped him from making a few discreet calls as the night wore on, however. At the first opportunity he'd slipped away and called Jackson. Not Sookie, because he didn't want to risk distressing her, and besides, Jackson was the one with his ear attuned to the rumors that murmured through town. If anyone knew the real story it would be him.

Jackson had efficiently given him the lowdown, which was basically the same story Christopher had offered. Other than a more detailed timeline, the facts remained the same. The one interesting tidbit Jackson threw in, however, was that Sookie didn't seem to be very worried about it. She swore that she didn't know where Lorelai was and didn't know what was going on, but at the same time she seemed to be relatively unconcerned that she was missing. 'She'll turn up when she's ready,' Jackson had quoted Sookie as observing, while blithely hauling out another pan of Christmas cookies.

Sookie's lackadaisical approach to her missing best friend was where Luke was going to hang his hope. If Sookie sensed that Lorelai was OK, he was going to pretend she was too.

Giving up his useless sentry post by the window, he walked over to the refrigerator, pulling open the door and gazing inside, going through the motions of getting a snack, even though his eyes refused to focus on any of the food contained within it. Eating or even grabbing a beer held no appeal. Finally he slammed the door closed and moved over to the couch.

He tried to get comfortable. He picked up the remote but didn't bother pushing the 'on' button. Instead he thought about the other phone call he'd made, this one to Mia. He'd been careful to let her think that this was just a normal Christmas call, wanting to wish her well. It was soon obvious that she hadn't heard from Lorelai, other than from a card sent earlier in the month. In fact, Mia was more concerned about him and how he was faring after the shock of Lorelai's quickie marriage. He knew it was a longshot, but the last time Lorelai had run away, she'd ended up with Mia. It wasn't completely out of line to think she'd do it again.

Eventually he did turn on the TV but nothing held his interest for long. His brain was too caught up in a real-life mystery, too involved in a true-to-life saga of a good love gone bad, to pay any attention to the made-up ones on TV. He gave up and got ready for bed.

Luke turned off the lights, forgetting about the Christmas tree. The muted glow from the little tree made it easy to follow the path over to the plug. But something about the hopefulness of the Christmas lights in his dark space made him pause when he reached the outlet.

It was easy to imagine Lorelai's face, if she could see him with this tiny symbol of everything he hated about the holiday lighting up his dull life. She'd be smiling, that's for sure. One of those shiny ones; the one she'd smile with when she was especially tickled with the ridiculousness of something. Her smile would be so big her eyes would be all crinkled up at the sides. He could almost hear her laughter and the teasing that would follow.

His hand pulled back from the plug. Feeling almost like a kid again, Luke climbed into bed, closing his eyes against the tender rays of blue, green, yellow and red continuing to shoot out insistently from April's tree.

Viewed from outside his window, the lights would probably shine like a beacon. And that could be useful. Just in case anyone needed some help to find their way home.

Unexpectedly comforted by that thought, Luke fell asleep.

* * *

Parenthood changes people. Even for Luke Danes, who now slept with the cellphone he once ranted against nestled on his bedside table, just in case of an April emergency. When the musical notes from it rang out sometime during the darkest hours of the night, he grabbed it without fumbling and had it pressed against his ear before the fear that something bad had happened to his daughter could even fully form in his mind.

"'Lo!" he barked out, his voice having to navigate through the gravel in his throat.

Silence. But not the silence of an empty line. The silence of someone waiting. Pondering, perhaps.

Luke cleared his throat and tried again. "Hello?"

Silence for a few more seconds. But then a noise, something that could have been some sort of interference within the connection. Or…maybe someone fighting to choke back a sob. He listened intently, not even breathing.

His patience was rewarded with the smallest whisper of words. "Do you miss me at all?"

Luke was standing now beside the bed, the phone pressed desperately against his ear. "You know I do," he said from his heart, not even having to think about it.

That noise again. Sounding less like static and more like the despair of heartbreak. Then, "I'm sorry," she whispered, the few words throbbing with emotion. "I hope you can believe me."

There wasn't a click. Phone conversations didn't end with a click anymore. But he could sense that there was no longer anyone on the other end of the line.

Luke knew that his phone was capable of a whole range of functions, the majority of which he didn't know how to activate or even care about. But the one thing he had learned was how to call back the number of the person who had just called. He punched the buttons and waited, his feet growing cold, listening to the line ringing and ringing wherever she was.

Finally the ringing stopped. He could hear her breathing on the other end, or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.

"Luke?" Disbelief filled her voice when she finally spoke.

All of his worry poured out of him. "Where are you? Are you safe? Do you need me to come get you?"

A few more seconds of silence. Then he swore he could sense her smiling through the phone. "You'd have to be a lot better swimmer than I think you are to come get me."

"Why? Where are you?" He was in no mood for games or teasing.

"I'm in London. Pretty big ocean between Connecticut and here."

"London?" Luke sat down on the edge of the bed. "I thought Rory was in London."

"Yeah, she is."

Luke wondered if he was still asleep, because this was making no sense to him. "Why are you in London? Is something wrong with Rory?"

"No," she said. She was quiet for a little bit, which was fine, because he knew she was deciding what to say. "I think there's something wrong with me."

"Wrong with you? Lorelai, what –" He was back on his feet again.

"No, not like that," she broke in. "I mean, I think I'm going crazy." He heard a desperate chuckle. "That must make you feel pretty vindicated, Luke. All those years you told me I was crazy, and now you just might be right."

"You're not crazy," he insisted. He settled himself on the bed once again. "What's going on?"

Slowly she began to confide in him. "There are people living in my house now, Luke. It's weird. Freaky. For so many years it's been me and Rory. Our castle. Our rules. Our way of living. But now Rory's gone and there are these other people in my house, and I'm supposed to adapt to them being there. I'm supposed to be OK with sharing and compromising and being welcoming, and I'm trying, Luke, I really am. But…Do you remember the milk? Do you remember when Rachel came back and you told me how she was always moving the milk in the refrigerator?"

"Yeah." Luke felt frozen in place. "I remember."

"It's like that." Lorelai paused. "It's like I'm trying so hard to make them fit in that everything feels wrong to me. It's like there's no place for me. It's not my house anymore. G.G.'s in Rory's room. Chris put this huge TV in the living room without even asking me. It's like I'm a hostess at a big fancy party, and I keep going around with a fake smile on my face and saying, 'Oh sure, that's fine, please, help yourself!' But it's not fine, and I'm not OK with it, and I keep waiting for the party to be over and for everyone to go home so I can have my house back, but…" She stopped abruptly, maybe hearing everything she'd just said. Her voice got tough. "I get that I created this mess. I don't get a do-over on this. This is the way things are, and I understand that I need to get used to it."

"So what happened yesterday?" he asked gently.

"I lost it," Lorelai admitted with a sigh. "I don't know if it was a panic attack or a breakdown, but whatever it was, I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I was trying to put away groceries and there just wasn't any room. There was all of this stuff, stuff that I didn't want, but yet I was supposed to find places to stash it. And meanwhile, there was stuff that I did want, stuff that I wasn't ready to let go of yet, and it was being pushed aside like it didn't even matter. And this awful, dark, soul-sucking feeling just sort of drenched me, and I believed with my whole heart that if I didn't see Rory I was going to die. I don't know how else to explain it. My world is just so out of whack. You know Rory's like the other part of me, but last month I did this major life event without her and now it's Christmas and she's not with me again, and I couldn't stand it. I just couldn't stand it."

"So you went to London." He had to admit, in some weird Lorelai-way, it actually made sense.

"Yes." She laughed, but it sounded a little bit on the hysterical side. "I signed a Visa card in blood and flew to London. It would have been cheaper to pay for another semester of Yale."

Luke was trying to just listen and not make any snap judgments. "So did it help, seeing Rory?"

Laughter again, sounding even more panic-stricken. "Here's the real funny part, Luke. I haven't even seen her!"

On the other side of the ocean, Luke shook his head. "Why not?"

"Because it's Christmas! She's planned this trip for months, you know? This is her big romantic holiday get-away with her boyfriend. I can't crash that!" He heard her draw in a big breath, and when she continued she was substantially more subdued. "How can I show up at her door? 'Oh, hey, Sweetie – and Logan – here's your crazy mommy, fresh from the States! Go on with your snogging; don't mind the crazy lady in the corner!'"

"Lorelai," Luke said, his disapproving tone coming mostly from the idea of Rory 'snogging' with the spoiled rich kid.

"Oh, Luke," she said, sighing out his name. "How did it all go so wrong?" She was almost whispering again.

Luke knew he wasn't up for answering that question. He shook his head again, clearing away his own regrets. "You are going to see her, though, right? Since you flew all the way over there?"

"Of course I will. Maybe on Boxing Day. Isn't that what they call the day after Christmas? Maybe by then they'll be sick of each other, and they won't view me as such an interference."

"That's a long time to sit and wait."

She chuckled ruefully. "I'm pretty sure I have plenty to think about. And I'll go out. Do some touristy things. See Buckingham Palace. Eat some Yorkshire pudding. Buy a corgi."

The conversation stalled out while Luke debated whether or not he should go to bat for his rival. Finally doing the right thing won out. "You've called _him_, right?"

A long pause on her end. "Um, no. Not yet."

"You should." Luke swallowed hard; told himself this was nothing. "He's worried sick."

"How do you –"

"He was in here tonight, checking to see if you'd talked to me about leaving. He's terrified, Lorelai. He's ready to call the cops and report you missing."

"Crap." She muttered some other things he couldn't quite make out. "I didn't mean to…Yeah, I'll call right away." Rustling noises, as though she was twisting around on the bed. "Ah, damn! It's the middle of the night there, isn't it? I'm so turned around on time. Maybe…maybe I should wait a couple of hours, until it's morning there?"

"No. Call now." Luke hated to give credence to Christopher's claim on her, but he had to. "I'm positive he's not sleeping."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean…" Lorelai sighed gustily. "Looks like something else I've managed to screw up."

"Just call. Let him know you're OK."

"I woke you up too, didn't I?"

"I don't mind. I was hoping to hear from you."

She made a noise of distress. "Is April there with you? Did I wake her up, too? I'm so sorry –"

"No, April's in New Mexico. Anna thought they should go see her mother, because she hasn't been well for quite a while now."

Lorelai was quiet for a few beats. "Does that mean you're on your own for Christmas?"

"Pretty much." He didn't know why his throat was threatening to close up. "You know, except for Kirk," he tried to joke.

She was quiet for another brief spell. "Luke, last year at Christmas…Did you ever imagine then that we'd both be alone this Christmas?"

"No." His throat had gone through with the proposed mutiny and he could barely talk at all. "No, I never thought we'd be alone." He struggled to swallow so he could continue. "But then, I never thought we'd be apart, either."

There was that noise again. The one that almost sounded like crying.

"I should go," she said, the words strained. "Got another call to make, you know."

"Listen, Lorelai, when you get back…" He wasn't quite sure what to say. "Don't be a stranger, OK?"

"Really?" The word tilted upwards, filled with hope.

"You know where the diner is. The door's usually unlocked. And I'm… still here," he admitted.

"Thanks," she said, reduced to whispering again. "And hey, Luke? Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," he repeated, and then continued to hold the phone against his ear long after he knew the line had gone dead.


	2. Arrival

**Author's Notes**: For such a short story, this is taking forever. Since some of you have been anxious to see what happens next, here's a little bit more. One more small chapter should finish it up, but I don't know how soon I'll get that written. In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone!

* * *

Another truth about Luke Danes: He was a lousy traveler.

He'd never had the opportunity to travel much, and when he had, he hadn't especially enjoyed it. After a day or two away from Stars Hollow he was ready for the homey atmosphere of the diner again. He disliked the untethered feeling of having no real place to settle when the day ended. He hated living out of suitcases. And the fear of making one wrong turn and ending up helplessly lost made sweat break out on his brow.

The trip he'd taken with Nicole had almost ended before it started – which might have been a blessing, he now acknowledged. They'd been in the airport, trying to find their gate for departure. She'd had some sudden pre-Feminist notion of letting him, 'the man,' lead the way, and he'd assumed that she, the more seasoned traveler, would show him the ropes. Their miscommunication had led to some nasty jibes, explosive irritation, and running on to the plane at the last possible moment. Not a good omen for their trip, although it certainly gave a realistic preview of upcoming highlights from their doomed attempt at marriage.

Today he'd studied the maps and the diagrams and all of the helpful 'you are here' highlighted dots and he'd thought he had himself situated in the best possible position to intercept her, except that her flight should have landed long ago and he still hadn't spotted her. He had almost convinced himself that he'd missed her when he happened to glance at a long-legged, gauntly beautiful, hollow-eyed woman hustling along the edge of the corridor.

"Lorelai!" he shouted, springing up from his bench, because already she'd almost passed him by.

Stunned, she skittered back from him, looking as though she'd stumbled upon a ghost. Her hold loosened on the handle of her rolling suitcase and it clattered to the floor, wheels spinning, nearly tripping a businessman charging up behind her.

Luke stepped over the dead suitcase and reached for her, intending merely to make sure she didn't trip over it herself, but once he touched her he found he had no control over his arms. They wrapped around her and then drew her to him, holding her against him securely.

At first he could feel her trembling. At least, he thought it was her, although he was pretty sure he was shaking, too. He pulled her closer and held her tighter, a sort of golden calmness descending over him as his chin found the top of her head. He exalted in feeling the never-really-forgotten silkiness of her hair against his skin again. Long moments passed, and at last Lorelai stopped quivering. She sighed brokenly and then relaxed completely against him, burrowing her face into the familiar flannel over his chest.

"Just so you know?" He spoke softly into her ear. "That's what I should have done the night you said you wanted to elope. I should have held on and not let you go until I figured out what was going on."

Lorelai pulled back, looking at him forlornly, biting at her bottom lip. "Let's not talk about that now," she requested, her eyes nervously darting around the busy corridor.

Luke nodded in understanding. He fished the suitcase up off the floor, took her arm, and navigated both of them over to a bank of seats against the wall.

Once they were seated Lorelai looked at him in amazement. "You are the last person I ever expected to see here. What in the world are you doing here?"

"Waiting on you," he said, shrugging at the obvious.

Her smile faded into doubt. "Really?"

"Really." Luke swung his head around, indicating their surroundings. "Hanging around the airport, waiting on international flights to land, isn't typically my thing."

She chuckled at that. "But how did you know I'd be here?"

"Sookie."

Her mouth dropped open a little in surprise. "Well. God bless Sookie, then." She reached over and gave his knee a spritely pat. "And God bless you, too, good sir."

"How was London?" he asked, searching for something to say now that they were both recovering from the jolt of being near each other again.

"Very British. Pip, pip, cheerio, mate. Can't you tell by my new accent? Say, where's the loo?" She grinned and craned her neck, pretending to look further down the hall.

"Gave up on bringing home the corgis, though, huh?" He made himself smile at her too, and noted that they were both trying really hard to act normally and failing miserably. "So did it help to see Rory?"

"Always." Lorelai nodded seriously. "She always makes me feel better, no matter what. But this time –" She broke off, glanced at Luke, and then looked away swiftly, wetting her lips apprehensively. "This time it might have actually helped me more to see Logan."

"Logan?" Luke didn't even try to hide his astonishment. "What did that smarmy little brat help with?"

"Now, now." Lorelai held up a warning finger. "He does love Rory. He looks out for her and he seriously wants the best for her. He's respectful to me. As much as it pains me to say this, we might just have to cut him some slack."

Luke looked skeptical. "Respect got him on your good side?"

"No, his crack legal team got him on my good side," Lorelai said flippantly, but her mouth pinched down in anger.

"Legal team?" Luke waited on her to explain.

"Oh, yes." She forced out a short, brittle laugh. "It turns out that Logan had doubts about the legality of my marriage _en français_ almost as soon as Rory told him about it. Privately he asked a lawyer he works with to look into it, as a favor to him." She stopped talking and looked down at her feet, pressing her arms over her chest.

"And?" Luke asked impatiently.

Her shoulders raised and lowered with a big breath of courage. Cautiously she held up her bare left hand to show him but looked away, not wanting to see his reaction.

He had to stare at the finger where the huge gold band had been for several long seconds before it began to sink in. "You're…not?" he dared to ask, not altogether positive he wanted it clarified in case he was misreading something.

She took another big breath. "I'm not married," she stated.

It was almost too much for Luke to take in. "But then, what was that all about?"

Lorelai was trying to act like it all didn't matter, but Luke could see the strain on her face, the tension as her fingers plucked at the strap of her purse. "Apparently it was some sort of commitment ceremony. Sort of like going to Niagara Falls and repeating marriage vows while you're sightseeing. It was a romantic thing for couples to do while in Paris. But it's not binding. And certainly not anything legally recognized in the States at all."

Luke could feel the first steam of outrage beginning to rise in him. "Did he know?" he asked curtly.

Lorelai shrugged, staring off down the bustling hallway. "He says he didn't. And I believe him; at least I believe that he didn't know in France. I think that once we got back he had some doubts about it and started checking into it too. He suspected, at the very least."

"But he wasn't going to _tell _you?" Luke was incensed, but then it occurred to him how pot-kettle-black it was for him to be angry at Christopher for keeping something from Lorelai, and the hypocrite factor was shaming enough to cool him down.

Lorelai gave him a short glance of wry amusement, almost as though she had picked up on his thoughts. And maybe she had. She used to often enough, after all.

"I think he was trying to figure out how to tell me," she surmised. "I think he wanted to have a plan already in place to fix it before he brought it up."

Luke had a brief, surreal moment of understanding how Christopher probably felt; how that awful _'Oh, God, what have I done?' _panic had shot through him. He quickly shook it off. "Are you OK?" he asked Lorelai, trying to judge how much the rapid dissolution of the marriage-that-wasn't had shaken her.

She seemed to be taking stock of herself. "Yeah, I think I am," she decided.

"What are you going to do now?" he wondered, and then wanted to kick himself for asking it. Maybe that was the last thing he wanted to know.

She leaned back in her seat and tilted her head up, closing her eyes for a moment. When she straightened back up and looked at him again, a small, sardonic smile was on her mouth. "Do you remember on the phone, how I said I knew I didn't get a do-over on this?" She smiled broader, more sincerely. "Well, apparently I do get one after all."

He gave up. He had to ask. "So are you going to do it over?"

She was shaking her head before the words were completely out of his mouth. "No. Absolutely not. You know I have a tendency to rush into things. I certainly rushed into this. I let myself be talked into it. I wasn't ready. At all." She smiled, willing to poke fun at herself. "I wasn't ready to share my house. Not even ready to let somebody else move the milk."

During most of the time he'd known Lorelai, Luke would have left that admission alone. He wouldn't have wanted to dig any deeper into it. Funny that now, long after their relationship had come to an end, and while sitting together in the midst of this hoard of airport humanity, he had the sudden urge to play Dr. Phil.

"Seemed like you were OK with me moving in," he pointed out, trying to sound casual about it.

Lorelai blinked rapidly, maybe a half-dozen times, before she swallowed hard. "Luke," she said then, sounding exasperated. She shook her head at him. "Apples. Oranges," she explained, holding out one hand, then the other.

He had to look down until he was able to control a self-satisfied smile. Then he got to his feet and reached out his hand to her. "Ready to head back to Stars Hollow?"

"Yes!" she said emphatically, and let him pull her up.

Luke grabbed for her suitcase. "Is this all you've got?"

"Yep. When you run away from home, you pack light."

"I'll have to remember that." He started them moving towards the exit. "By the way, how did you get to the airport in the first place?"

"Dwight called right in the middle of my breakdown. He was leaving and wanted me to come over and water his plants while he was skiing in Aspen, or some such thing. I told him I couldn't because I was leaving town too, but oh, hey – could you take me to the airport?" Lorelai gave Luke a look of triumph. "Figured it was time I got a little payback for all of those house-sitting sessions he sprang on me during the last few years."

The automatic door opened and they stepped outside, Lorelai shivering when the cold air hit her. "That was what scared people," Luke explained to her. "The Jeep sitting there and you being gone." He stepped to the side, letting her go ahead of him to board the tram that would take them to short-term parking.

Once they settled onto two empty seats, Lorelai turned to him. "Sorry," she sighed. "It wasn't a well thought-out plan. I panicked and ran. I had to go. I had to do. I just couldn't stay there and doubt anymore. I never thought it through to the point where someone would notice I wasn't there. I didn't mean to worry anyone."

Luke studied her silently and nodded. He had no problem believing that of her.

The tram got to the point closest to the truck and Luke signaled for a stop. They walked down the aisle of vehicles, huddled against the wind. Luke threw her suitcase into the back and then opened the door, helping her inside.

"Just like old times," Lorelai murmured, smiling wistfully.

They rode in silence for a time, Luke concentrating on the unfamiliar roads and heavy traffic. After a time, Lorelai started talking, chatting about this and that, and he responded or not, which as usual made no difference to her.

"How was your lonely Christmas?" she asked him eventually.

"Fine." He shrugged, still watching the traffic. "No different than any other day."

"The diner was open?"

"Sure. Didn't see any reason not to."

She seemed to be mulling that over. "Were you busy?"

He wondered for a moment how to answer that. _'Not busy enough to forget you were gone?' _He sighed. "It was busy enough in the morning with the after-church crowd. Not much traffic later."

She nodded. "April's at her grandmother's, you said?"

"Yeah." He frowned, moving them over into a bumper-to-bumper filled right-hand lane, so they could take the next exit. "Anna thought they'd better go out and check on her."

Lorelai's eyebrows pulled together in concern. "That's why Anna went out there in the spring, too, wasn't it? Because her mother wasn't doing well?"

He checked the rear-view again and nodded.

"So is that a concern?" Lorelai asked. "Is Anna thinking that her mom needs help? Is she planning to bring her here or thinking that she might need to go out there more often?"

"Don't know. Maybe," Luke said shortly. He was suddenly not comfortable sitting behind the wheel. He felt hemmed in. Trapped.

"Do you think that Anna's thinking about maybe having to move out there?" Lorelai pressed on.

"Don't know," he muttered again, staring straight ahead.

"Well, what would she do if her mother needs her?" Lorelai wondered. "Close up her shop? Move April out there?"

The words exploded out of him, bypassing his brain completely. "Lorelai, I don't know, OK? I don't have any idea what Anna's going to do!" He shifted in his seat, his fingers throttling around the steering wheel. "And I _really_ don't like discussing this! I'm _not_ discussing this!"

"Oh, I guess I know that!" Lorelai shot back bitterly. She folded down into herself and sank over against the door. Her lips quivered for an instant but then she steeled her features, looking straight out through the windshield.

Almost instantly he was filled with shame, so much so that he couldn't talk. He let multiple miles slip by before he tried to form an apology.

"About that do-over thing," he began, tentatively, and felt gratified when she looked over at him, curiosity nudging away some of her hurt. "You have no idea how many times since May I've begged the universe for another chance. You know how it is, how you make deals with God. _'Please,' _you say_. 'I've learned my lesson. I won't make the same mistakes again. Please, just give me another chance.'_" He glanced over and saw she was watching him intently, and in turn, that made him speak even more contritely. "Every day, Lorelai, I've wished for another chance to make things right with you. Every day I've wished with all my heart that I'd done things differently. And here the universe gave me another chance and I've blown it already. After all this time, all of these months, and apparently I still haven't learned a damn thing."

"I know the feeling," she granted, smiling politely.

"I don't think you do," he said kindly, wanting her to know that his response was aimed at himself, not at her. He held onto the steering wheel, committed to having this conversation. "Everything about April from the very beginning has made me feel so powerless. Vulnerable. Useless." He shook his head. "And I hate that. I hate feeling that way. I hate feeling that I have no control."

"Impotent," Lorelai suggested, an evil glint alighting her eyes.

Luke snorted, acknowledging her barb. "Well, maybe not the word I'd choose, but yeah. This all got thrown at me, and I've responded to it as best I could, but I'm always going to be 12 years behind. No matter how hard I try, I can't catch up. I'm never going to be good enough to make up for what I've lost. It's disheartening to know that I can own my business, and I can set goals and dream dreams and make plans…but when it comes to my own daughter, I'm completely powerless. I have no say with what goes on with her." He paused for a moment, weighing his words. "And somehow, when I tried to talk to you about any of it, it just made it worse. It made it more real, somehow. It made me feel even more desperate to find some way to turn April into my daughter on my own."

Lorelai was quiet for a long time. Too long, probably. "I'm sorry if I did something that made you feel like you couldn't talk to me about her."

He gritted his teeth and rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm not explaining this right. It wasn't anything that you did or didn't do. It was just that when I talked about it – or tried to talk about it to you, that's when it would all hit me about how real it all was. How serious it was. And I…" He shook his head. "It scared me, Lorelai. It scared me to talk about it then; it scares me now. When I admit any of this to you, that's when I realize how much is at stake. I could lose her. And it's just so damned not fair. It's not fair that I didn't know a thing about her for 12 years. She just dropped into my life, and now I may lose her again —" His breath and words were coming fast, so he stopped them, slapping at the steering wheel while he struggled to explain. "I mean, why would I find out about her, and get to love her, only to have her yanked out of my life again? So, yeah. Thinking about her moving away hurts me. Talking about it terrifies me. And that's why I don't want to discuss it. Even with you."

Slowly he became aware that Lorelai had placed a compassionate hand on his shoulder. "You're right," she told him, squeezing tenderly. "It's not fair. It's not fair at all."

He drew a deep breath and nodded at her, thanking her without words.

She gave one last pat to his shoulder and then moved her hand up to smooth through the hair over his ears. She snatched her hand back abruptly, perhaps suddenly remembering she had no right to do that anymore. "And you're not powerless, you know," she advised him primly, inching back over to her portion of the seat.

"Oh?"

"Nope. You _are _her father, Luke. She is your daughter. And just like any other father in this country, you have rights in the eyes of the court."

He drove on, silently.

"Don't I at least get points for _not_ saying that like Darth Vader?"

He still didn't respond.

"Luke, look. You _do_ have rights. Just say the word, and I'll –"

He pressed his lips together, steeling himself to get through her offer of help.

"—I'll call Logan," she finished up, sounding smug. "You know what a crack legal team he has up his sleeve. I'm sure that they could do something for you."

That was _so_ not what he was expecting to hear that shocked laughter burst out of him. After a moment she started giggling too. The shared laughter burned away whatever apprehension still lingered and a warmth remained afterwards, reminding them of the solid friendship that they'd built up between them, year after year. Gratefully he reached for her hand, squeezing it with true affection.

Mentioning Logan again started Lorelai off on London recollections. She regaled him with stories about her current hurried trip, backpacking through the city with Rory, and even things that had happened long ago, when she visited there with Emily and Richard and was expected to know how to curtsey as a proper young lady. The miles passed swiftly until they were once again within the boundary of Stars Hollow.

"Whoa. Wait!" Lorelai clutched at the door handle and pulled herself up to look out at the darkened streets of her hometown. "Luke, wait. Where are you taking me?"

He shook his head at her goofy question. "To your house, of course."

"No! Luke, seriously, stop." She was grabbing at his elbow, trying to get his attention. "I can't go there yet. Stop the truck, do you hear me?"

Luke slowed but kept going, casting guilty glances over at his passenger. "You know, don't you?" he finally asked, carefully keeping his voice neutral.

She stopped pulling at him and stared. "Know what?"

Now he checked behind him and pulled over to the curb, putting the truck into park. Indecision made him rub his fingers over his chin. At last he turned to face her. "He's not there," he said, hoping the words sounded disinterested enough.

Lorelai frowned and slightly shook her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Luke gave up on trying to find a more gentle way to break the news. "He moved out. Yesterday. According to Babette, he took the little girl—"

"G.G.," Lorelai corrected him, an edge to her voice.

Luke nodded, continuing. "He took her and had a truck come and load up their stuff, and he gave the key to Babette to keep until you came home."

Lorelai sort of deflated on the seat next to him. She ran a hand through her hair and looked around, her eyes not focused on anything.

"He didn't tell you," Luke guessed, stating the obvious. "I'm sorry."

"No. No, it's…" She folded her hands in her lap and tried to recoup. "He said we'd talk when I got back, and I just thought that meant…" She shook her head again. "I just feel silly for assuming that meant here."

"Sorry," Luke offered again. "But at least this means you can go home." He reached to put the truck in gear, anxious to be doing something.

She grabbed his arm again, frantic to stop him. "I am not going to that house, Luke. And it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not Chris is there. The house is full of ghosts that I'm just not ready to deal with yet – Oh, my God! Paul Anka!" She clutched at his arm, now with a different sort of panic. "Where's Paul Anka?"

Luke took his hands away from the truck's controls and twisted to lean against his door, looking at her with some confusion. "Sookie," he said, sounding as though he was urging her to remember something.

"Sookie," she repeated, staring at him. Slowly she relaxed again. "Sookie," she said, nodding. "That's right. I think I sent her a message when I was running, telling her that I might need her to look after Paul Anka."

"I suppose that's why she wasn't overly concerned when you turned up missing," Luke pointed out sourly. He held out his hands in surrender. "So if you're not going home, where am I taking you?"

"Just take me to the Dragonfly," Lorelai requested, leaning her head back tiredly.

Luke made no move to start the truck rolling down the street. "Uh…" he started, uneasily.

"What?" The word snapped with irritation.

"Unless you want to sleep in your office, or in the barn with the horses, the Dragonfly's out," Luke informed her. "The place is full up. Taylor's got a great-aunt staying there, and Andrew's parents have a room, and I think that the Gleasons have at least three rooms. I mean, you could check, but the last I heard, it's all booked up."

He could see that Lorelai was getting cross, but then she shifted over into a dry humor. "I guess it's a little crazy, me getting all steamed up because my business is doing so well." She rubbed her forehead, smiling grimly at the absurdity of it. "Damn. The one time I need a room," she muttered.

"Do you want me to take you to Sookie's?" Luke offered.

"No." Lorelai stared off down the street. "I know she's got her hands full with Jackson's relatives. Not to mention my dog. I'm not adding to that."

"OK." Luke was feeling more and more uncomfortable, sitting idling along the side of the street. "Where do you want to go then? Babette's? Patty's? Do you want me to take you into Hartford?"

For a moment Lorelai sat motionless, continuing to just stare blankly out into the dark. He was beginning to think that maybe she'd missed his question and he was wondering if he needed to nudge her again, or give her some other options, but then she turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide and clear and warm, with just a hint of pleading in them. Her head tilted just a few degrees, letting a curl spill down over one shoulder. Her lips parted very slightly, just enough for her teeth to bite the side of her bottom lip. She smiled at him then, with that soft, special smile she always used on him to get her way.

Neither of them spoke. They didn't need to. They had a complete conversation, just studying the expressions moving over each other's faces.

_You can't be serious._

_I am._

_Bad idea. Colossally bad idea._

_Please._

_No._

_You'd let me wander the streets, homeless?_

_You have a home._

_Not anymore I don't. _

_This is ridiculous._

_Luke, please. _She put her hand on top of his. _Please._

_Lorelai –_

_Please. For one night, keep me safe from the ghosts._ Her eyes shimmered. Her quivering mouth opened and some actual words tumbled out, heartfelt and raw. "Please, Luke. Please."

Luke groaned, knowing he'd never had a chance.

"OK, then," he said with a heavy sigh, and turned the truck around.


	3. Baggage Claim

**Author's Note:** We've finally reached the end of this story! Huge thanks go to Eledgy, who read it through and convinced me that with a couple of fixes it was ready to go. Also, thanks to all of you who take the time to read it. I really appreciate all of you who still enjoy a visit to the Gilmore world.

* * *

There had been many a time during Luke Danes' life that he had declared loudly and self-righteously that he didn't give a damn about the rumors that swirled daily through Stars Hollow. He stood steadfastly behind his refusal to listen to them and had held his head high during the times when he himself had been the object of them. He pitied the shallow people who had nothing better to do than spend their time gossiping over the latest victim of circumstance.

Those past sentiments didn't prevent him from parking the truck in the alley, though, and rushing Lorelai inside through the back door. She'd had enough uproar in her life recently without the busybody crusade speculating on why he was escorting her into the diner.

Once they were both safely inside the rear hallway, Luke paused before continuing over to the stairs. "Are you sure you don't want something to eat?" he asked her again.

On the long drive home Lorelai had resisted his offers to stop for food, insisting each time that she wasn't hungry. Now she turned and looked pensively towards the curtain, her hand pressing against her stomach. "Well…" she said, and just the tone of that one word told him she'd changed her mind.

"Come on." Luke abandoned her suitcase and pushed through the curtain, heading with purpose towards the kitchen. He let the light from inside the refrigerator be the only source of illumination, not wanting to tip off anyone strolling by outside that he was feeding Lorelai. He studied the labeled containers. "Looks like there's some soup. You want beef barley or Wisconsin cheese?"

"Um, both?"

He snorted a little bit at that, showing his displeasure at her Gilmore gluttony, but truthfully he was happy to know she had an appetite. That first glance he'd had of her at the airport, all pinched-faced and hollow-eyed, coupled with her disinterest in stopping for a meal, had worried him. Now he grabbed both containers and found an empty box under the table to put them in. He added some bread and cheese and a packet of thinly sliced roast beef.

"I'll warm this up upstairs," Luke told her, motioning for her to lead the way out, but Lorelai stopped beside the counter. She whined and panted and pantomimed begging at the pie stored under the dome there.

Luke sighed and held out the box. She gave a happy squeal and lifted the lid, slipping the pastry-laced pan into the box on top of one of the soups.

"Can you handle the suitcase?" Luke asked when they reached the stairs again, since his hands were full with the provisions for their supper.

"Sure," Lorelai shrugged, snatching up the handle. "This thing's followed me through two continents now." She trailed him up the stairs, letting the bag thunk against each step as she dragged it behind her.

"Can you be more annoying?" Luke tried to sound grumpy, but it was almost impossible for him to mask the fact that grumpy was pretty much the exact opposite of the way he was feeling at the moment.

Behind him, Lorelai took in a deep breath. "The sun'll come out, tomorrow!" she belted out, with all of the enthusiasm any pint-sized Annie had ever brought to the stage. "Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun!"

"That was a rhetorical question, you know," he informed her, once the impromptu concert had ended. For probably the millionth time he marveled at her openness, her willingness to play the fool and go for the silliness. There was no way he could ever let go of his natural reserve long enough to do something like that. It was a wonder they'd ever forged a bond at all, so different were they on so many levels. Reaching the top of the stairs, Luke juggled the box and got the door open for them.

"Well, I took it as a challenge," Lorelai said proudly. Once she was in the apartment doorway, Lorelai bounced her shoulders, looking pleased with her effort to increase her annoying quotient. If Luke didn't know her as well as he did, he would have missed the apprehension lurking just below her projected confidence.

"Come on in." He headed for the kitchen, making sure to act busy with pulling out the food, searching for pots. He let her enter on her own time, trying not to watch as she slowly let go of the suitcase handle and drifted around the space, quietly cataloging the changes seven months had brought.

"Hey, you've got a tree!" she called out with delight, zooming over to it, just the way he knew she would. She plugged it in and stepped back, admiring it. "I can't believe Mr. Scrooge McScroogeington has a Christmas tree! What brought that on?"

"April," he told her. "She thought I should have one."

"Aw. That's sweet." She studied the tree for another minute before forcing herself out that reverie. She approached the kitchen with trepidation. "Can I help?"

"Set the table?" he suggested, a sudden lump catching in his throat at being able to say such an everyday thing to her.

"Sure. I can do that."

Automatically Lorelai went for the cupboards with the plates, and pulled out the silverware drawer without hesitation. In no time the table was set and the soup was hot. Luke put the sandwich ingredients on the table so they could help themselves as they went. They took their places and it was like nothing had changed at all, except for a particular rusty feeling inside themselves telling them that everything had.

At her first spoonful of soup Lorelai made a small gasp of distress.

"Did you burn yourself?" Luke asked tolerantly. It had always been a normal question between them. Lorelai could never wait for the food to cool sufficiently before starting to shovel it into her mouth.

"No, I just never expected to taste your cooking again," she said very softly. She turned to him with a plucky smile, even though her eyes were blurry with tears. She blinked and swallowed, and courageously took another bite. "It's good," she confirmed, aiming a backwards swipe at her eyes without admitting she was crying. "New recipe?"

"Yeah. Found it in an old cookbook. I thought it'd be something –"_that you'd love_, he almost said. "Thought it'd be a good recipe for winter," he explained instead.

"Can't go wrong with plenty of cheese," Lorelai agreed, quickly spooning up more of the hearty golden broth.

They ate and chatted, and ate some more, and eventually Luke realized that he'd been the one doing the bulk of the talking for quite some time. He glanced at Lorelai and saw that she was nearly reduced to using her pie as a pillow because exhaustion had caught up to her.

Gently he brushed against her arm. "Go get ready for bed," he suggested when she looked at him, too sleepy to even be startled at the touch. "Go on now. I'll clean up."

She nodded and scooted back from the table. She dragged the suitcase and her feet towards the bathroom.

"There are fresh towels under the—" Luke abruptly stopped himself. "Never mind," he muttered foolishly. "Guess you already know where the towels are."

"Yeah. I remember," she said with a quiet bravery, pausing ever-so-slightly in the doorway, her hand resting against the frame. She didn't look over at him. The suitcase bumped over the threshold and the door shut firmly.

"Whew." Luke exhaled in momentary relief. Being around her again was easier, and at the same time harder, than he ever imagined it could be. He hung his head for a moment, welcoming the brief respite from tension. Then he rushed around, doing a 'good enough' job of temporarily cleaning up the kitchen, like his mother used to say when company was present.

When the bathroom door opened again he dared a quick look her way, and was reassured to see that she had on a typical Lorelai winter nighttime outfit: brushed cotton pants, long-sleeved tee, another shirt over the top of it. Some type of fuzzy socks. Her hair was still pulled back into a low ponytail from washing her face.

Luke swiftly wiped his hands on a dishcloth and charged into the living space. "Tell you what, help me change the sheets on the bed and it'll be all ready for you."

With a sarcastic snort, the docile, sleepy girl disappeared. "Save yourself the trouble. I will not be sleeping in that bed."

"Why the hell not?" Luke challenged, flummoxed at her sudden attitude change.

"Luke." She sounded maddened. Frustrated. "Why do you _think _why not?"

Awkwardness smacked him in the face. He struggled to keep going. "Well, that's just silly," was the best retort he could find.

"Maybe so, but I'm still not doing it." She was so sullen that even the dirtiness in her refusal didn't grab her attention.

Luke sighed, deciding it wasn't worth a fight. "Fine. April's bed is already good to go, then."

Another fierce snort from Lorelai. "No way."

"Oh, come on!" He glared at her, not believing she was fighting this too for some crazy, unfounded reason. "What could possibly be wrong with April's bed?"

The cold, composed tone of her voice suddenly reminded him of the times he'd heard her stand up to her mother. "There's no way I'm sleeping in that girl's bed."

"Lorelai—" he began, through gritted teeth.

"No." Angrily she yanked the ponytail holder out of the back of her hair. "You didn't want me anywhere around her, remember? No way I'm climbing into her bed now." She was still trying to sound angry, but the recollected pain was clearly evident all over her face and body.

For a long moment Luke couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. He'd told himself lies for a long time about what he'd done and why he'd done it, but now the truth was standing right there in front of him, showcased in the bitter look of hurt on Lorelai's face and in the despondent slump of her shoulders. He'd wounded her so much with that iron-fisted code of conduct he'd constructed around April. Those foolish rules of his had sliced right into Lorelai's heart.

The shock of recognizing his own transgressions gradually wore away and he rubbed a hand across his forehead, taking stock. Carefully he moved over to her, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder, hoping that his regret could somehow be transmitted from his skin to hers. "I'm sorry, you know," he sincerely acknowledged. "I'm so sorry for all of the hurt I caused."

She wouldn't look at him at first, but eventually he felt the tension in the muscle under his hand dissipate. "Yeah, I know," she admitted, sounding absolutely exhausted again. "We're all sorry," she sighed. "But I'm still sleeping on the couch."

Luke shook his head, giving up. "Whatever you want. You win." He paced to the closet and pulled out some sheets and a blanket or two. He sidetracked over to the bed and grabbed one of the pillows, and then brought all of the linens over to where she was standing, still downcast and brooding, by the couch. "I figure you can't argue about the pillow," he told her, already feeling defensive. "It's yours."

The look on Lorelai's face was hard to read as she smoothed a hand over the pillow. "I had to get rid of everything," she said quietly. "I just couldn't stand it."

He nodded, not knowing what he could possible say that wouldn't make it worse. He'd debated it too, in those dazed days immediately after. He couldn't decide if it was worse to live temporarily with the bad memories or regret not keeping the good ones for later. Finally the decision was made when he realized that the only thing helping him fall asleep at night was the lingering scent of her shampoo on the pillow.

"You need help?" he asked gruffly, motioning from the sheets to the couch.

She shook her head, still hugging the pillow. "Used to be a maid, remember?"

"Fine, then." He put on a show, marching to the dresser to snatch up his sleep clothes out of the bottom drawer, and then heading to the bathroom, not chancing a look back at her.

Later when he came out she was already cocooned in layers on the couch, her once and present pillow under her head.

"You need anything else? Water or anything?" He was polite, but bordering on curt. Protecting himself. Protecting her.

Her eyes caught a brief glint, a hint of her old deviousness, and suddenly he could almost imagine all of the things she would have said to that question in the past. But instead she just shook her head and snuggled further under the blanket.

"Goodnight then," he said, and hit the main light switch.

The tree continued to glow in front of the window.

"Uh…" he floundered. "Um…" He tried desperately to think how to phrase it so that it wouldn't sound completely cracked, while running his hand through his still-damp hair. "About the tree…Would it bother you if we left it on?"

He couldn't miss the nosiness oozing out of her, but in the end she held it mostly in. "Hoping that Santa Claus will make a return trip? Or maybe you need a nightlight in your old age, huh? Well sure, Grandpa. That's fine."

With as much dignity as he could find he locked the door and turned off the other lights. Self-consciously he crawled into the bed, wishing more than anything for the return of his old single. This one was too big. Too lonely. Too silent.

The silence, however, didn't last for long.

"This reminds me of the night the Inn burned down," she piped up.

He recognized the late-night conversational lilt in her voice. He rose up on one elbow to take a peek over at the couch. Yep. One arm was out, her fingers twirling through a lock of hair while she reminisced, looking up at the ceiling.

"Do you remember? Only you slept on the couch that time."

"Of course I remember. You shamed me into it, as I recall."

"Yeah. Maybe. Probably." Suddenly one of her sweet laughs bubbled out. "Yeah, I did," she agreed. "Man, until that night I had no idea guys could snore as loud as you and Jess did. I would have been better off sleeping in the gazebo."

"Except that you're not Kirk," Luke pointed out.

"True." She laughed again, a wonderful sound to his ears. She quieted, but he knew she wasn't ready to fall asleep yet. Soon her voice came across the room again, more serious this time. "So did you already know then? Did you know we'd end up together?"

"I didn't _know_." He paused, wondering just how much to admit. "I hoped, I guess." Now he was the one studying the ceiling. "Hoped that maybe someday you'd look at me as something more than just a coffee provider."

She mulled that over. "So Nicole was right, huh? I was an issue?"

"Probably. Although at the time I never thought it would get to the point where it mattered." Quickly he shifted the focus away from himself. "So how about you? Did you ever once think about us being together before it happened?"

Lorelai scoffed. "Of course not!"

That rankled. "Why 'of course not?'" he threw back at her heatedly.

She made a 'tsk' noise. "Because I thought you couldn't stand me."

"_What?"_

"Oh, I know we were friends, and we liked each other on a fundamental level, and we'd even had some pretty serious _moments _between us through the years, but I also knew you found me irritating and annoying. I couldn't imagine you'd ever get past that enough to look at me romantically, so I never let myself get caught up in thoughts of a relationship with you." She then paused a half-second, because she was always great with the timing of her bombshells. "So I strictly only fantasized about the sex."

"About the – what?" he sputtered out.

"Oh yeah," she sighed wistfully. "That was my hobby for years. You know, on the days I'd eat here alone, without Rory along, or somebody else to chat with and occupy my thoughts, I'd imagine all of the ways you and I could potentially hook up. Let me tell you, that storeroom of yours saw _a lot _of action."

"Really. The storeroom." Luke's voice was as dry as his throat. "So, what? You thought we could sashay into the back and nobody would notice? In this town?"

"Well, they didn't all take place here," Lorelai said, defending her imagination. "You know, maybe we'd happen to meet up in Hartford some night. Maybe we'd both be in the same place at the same time for some weird reason. Who knows what would've happened if enough booze was involved and I had on a tight enough dress? Maybe you would have decided I wasn't that annoying after all."

"I wouldn't have needed the booze," Luke muttered. He knew they probably shouldn't be talking about such things, but it felt so much like old times it was hard to see the harm. "So you only wanted me for the sex, huh?"

"Right, like you never had those sorts of thoughts," she goaded him.

Wisely he stayed silent.

The couch groaned as she struggled to sit up. "You did, didn't you? Tell me!" she happily demanded.

He fought down laughter but still refused to answer.

"Luke!" she complained, still trying to sit up enough to look over at him. Suddenly she gasped. "Oh my God, was it something we actually _did_?"

He'd forgotten how much fun it was to be the one teasing her for a change. He swallowed down a laugh. "Spaghetti night," he said, trying to sound like she'd forced it out of him.

Lorelai gasped again and the couch squeaked as she bounced in disbelief. "Luke! You _planned _that?" He could almost hear her thinking. "You did! I remember now – you even talked me into wearing that dress! I can't believe you!"

"I merely made a suggestion," he said innocently.

She laughed, completely delighted at his confession. "And here you've always chastised me about being the one with the dirty mind."

"I don't know if I'd call it chastising you," he argued. "But you do."

Lorelai chuckled and lay back down. "Yeah, I do," she agreed, sounding sleepy again.

Silence settled between them.

"I'm glad you're here," Luke told her gruffly, the honesty of the words making them come out all rough-edged.

"Me too," she said so quietly it was almost a whisper. "Will you wake me up in the morning for breakfast?"

"Sure. Or maybe I'll just snore extra loud around 5:30."

She giggled sleepily. "That'll work. Goodnight, Luke."

"'Night," he said back, but sincerely doubted that he'd be able to sleep at all with her just a few feet away from his bed. Where was that blasted ocean when he needed it?

* * *

Much to Luke's surprise, Lorelai's presence was actually a balm to his weary nerves. Knowing that she was back, and safe, and tucked so securely into his old couch that for one night, at least, he didn't have to worry about her soothed him to sleep better than that pill they advertised on TV with the hallucinogenic glowing butterfly.

Of course, Luke didn't know he'd fallen asleep so easily. He didn't know it until something abruptly woke him, and then he laid there in quiet confusion, trying to figure out what it was that had awakened him.

A slight turn of his head showed him Lorelai standing at the window, a multicolored halo around her head from the Christmas lights. Silently he watched her observing the sleeping town, her arms crossed determinedly over her chest, giving off the impression that was the only way she was managing to hold herself together.

He heard the noise again. The one that had pulled him out of sleep. The same one he'd heard that night on the phone, when an ocean had been between them.

Luke forced himself to lie perfectly still and tried to pretend he didn't know she was crying. After all, this was her private moment and he didn't want to interrupt that. Or to embarrass her, either. And…maybe he didn't even want to know what she was crying about. It was easier, less damaging to his psyche, to continue to cower in the big bed, pretending he didn't know what was going on.

Unfortunately, Luke was no longer that guy he'd turned into last year, the one who had found a way to look the other way and pretend that Lorelai was OK. Resolutely he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up. He deliberately cleared his throat as he padded up to her, giving her warning that he was approaching.

"Sorry," she whispered, twisting her head backwards to give him a half-hearted, still-teary smile. "Wasn't trying to wake you up."

"Don't worry about it," he mumbled, not sure what to say. "What's going on?"

She shrugged, her arms still folded in front of her. "It's just here. Being up here again. There are ghosts here, too. Guess I didn't anticipate that."

"Yeah," Luke sighed. "They're downstairs in the diner, too. You should see the big one that's taken over the stool where you usually sat."

She pulled in a quivering breath. "Have you tried going to any town meetings? Completely packed with ghosts."

He nodded in agreement. "Doose's," he added. "In every freakin' aisle." Instinctively he reached for her shoulders, intending to pull her back against him, because the tone of their conversation and the late hour had lulled him into thinking that would be OK. Instead he jerked his hands away as soon as he touched her. "Geez, Lorelai! You're a block of ice!" His hands locked on her shoulders after all, turning her, urging her across the room. "Get in the bed. Get warm before you give yourself pneumonia."

He'd forgotten how strong she could be when she wanted. She squatted down, loosening his grip, and then pivoted out of his reach.

"No way! Absolutely not, Luke!" She glared at him, almost trembling from the zeal of her conviction. "I am not ping-ponging from you to him and back to you again! That is absolutely not happening!"

Anger flared up in him immediately. She'd always had that way about her, that way of phrasing something that would instantly set him off. "After all the years you've known me, _that's _what you think? That you can't trust me? That I'd take advantage? Guess you don't know me at all, is that it?"

"Right, Luke. That's _exactly_ it." The sarcasm rolled off of her. "Seriously, do _you_ not know _me_? Do you really think that in this situation, _you're_ the one I don't trust?"

He'd heard her, but he was still seething mad. He spun around and stalked over to the bed, one hand reaching out to grasp the comforter spread over it.

He reached out, but instead of knitted cotton his hand seemed to close over Lorelai's skin. Peach-soft, cherry-scented, and cold to the touch. His memory bombarded him with the recollections of other nights, of Lorelai under the covers, her bare skin greedily skimming over his as she tried to absorb his body heat, and how desperately he'd held her to him while another type of heat overpowered them both. The memory was so strong that his knees buckled and he had to sit on the bed for a moment, trying to place himself in the correct timeline. It was crucial that he keep it all straight; what they were before; what they were before the before; what they might be again.

Just as he was beginning to recover his equilibrium he experienced another one of those unnerving jolts of divination into Christopher Hayden's soul. Just like he'd understood why Chris didn't want to tell Lorelai about his marriage doubts, this time he could practically hear what had gone through his mind that night when Lorelai had shown up at his door. It might discomfort him to admit it, but the similarities were there.

Luke scrambled to his feet, pulling off the comforter behind him. "Look, there are a couple of things we're going to get straight here, right now," he informed her. He continued over to April's bed, where he tugged the teal bedspread off as well. He took two steps over to the couch and motioned impatiently for Lorelai to join him.

"To start with, I'm not the guy you think I am. I never was." Lorelai had tentatively come to stand beside him, and he unfurled April's bedspread around her shoulders, covering her from head to foot. He gave her a little push and she landed on the couch. "I was a mean guy, Lorelai. Life had not been good to me for a long, long time. I was nasty, and grumpy, and tough, and I didn't care what I said or who I said it to." He sat down beside her and then picked up her blanketed legs and put them over his, swiveling her bottom sideways on the couch beside him. Then he took the comforter from his bed, tucked it under his toes on the floor, and covered both of them with it. With a little shudder of relief, Lorelai gave in and put her head on his shoulder, shivering against the warmth he was offering.

"I never pretended to be anything else. But for some reason, when you met me you didn't see that. When I spewed out something nasty, instead of being appalled and running away, you laughed. You decided that I was funny and witty and clever, and you liked me that way. The more you came around, the more you traded insults with me, the more I tried to be that guy you thought I was. And then somewhere along the line, you decided I was a kind and generous soul, too, and once again, I changed to match the image you'd built up of me. So if I am a decent guy today, it's all thanks to you."

"What's with all the self-deprecation?" she asked a little testily.

He leaned his head back, releasing a bark of sheepish laughter because here she was, still defending him. "That's not what I'm doing. This is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about. All I'm doing is being honest here, and acknowledging the huge part you played in me not being a cantankerous loner today. I'm not a saint, Lorelai. I never was."

"You were to me," she insisted, and then paused, hedging a bit. "Well, most of the time, anyway."

Luke sighed and plunged on. "I think that's part of the reason I didn't want to tell you about April. I didn't want to tarnish your opinion of me. I was vain enough that I wanted you to keep thinking I was so much better than what I really was. That was I incapable of making such a big mistake. And that brings us to the second thing you need to realize. Not every mistake is yours. Not everything that goes wrong is your fault."

"That's true. Iran-Contra? Totally not my fault."

"I blame your parents."

"Ooh, there's an idea I can completely get behind. I blame my parents, too."

Luke's arm tightened around her just a bit, a signal that this wasn't joking time. "Look, it seems to me that once you took the fall for getting pregnant, your parents decided they could pin everything else that went wrong on you, too. I don't know how many times you told me stories about your mom being upset about something else and then just unloading on you, like it was your responsibility somehow. I know it makes you angry when she treats you like that, but yet you accept it. Then I guess it spread out from your mom, because I've watched Rory do that to you, too. She'll be mad about something and boom! Suddenly she's being all nasty to you, like you caused it somehow. I've seen Sookie blame you for her not ordering enough salmon. Michel's done it. Taylor, even. Hell, I've done it to you. Things go wrong and you're more than willing to shoulder the blame, like it's your penance or something. But you can't do that anymore, Lorelai. I mean it. I'm no saint and you're not always to blame. If we're to go on, you've got to accept that. This thing that went wrong between us? We both share the responsibility for that. We share the blame."

Her breath quickened and the blanket shifted as she clutched a fistful of it. "Luke, are you saying…I mean, do you…About us…Do you want us to go on?"

Another set of conflicting emotions hit him. He wanted to hold her to him, to hold her so tightly that she'd be fused into him, but at the same time he knew that he needed to tread lightly, to let her take her time and decide on her own about whatever future path she wanted. She needed time to assess the changes she'd gone through during the past year. She didn't need to shape her wishes to suit him. He settled for bending his head to hers, and very lightly rubbing his confused forehead against her hair.

"I know what I want. What I wish. But your life has been blown sky-high a couple of times here recently. I wouldn't expect you to have an answer about anything right now, you know?"

"Oh, but I do. I can. I mean, I already know." She pulled away and nodded her head, settling herself in for a bout of convincing. "What I did was wrong," she began, but then startled and clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. "Of course what I did was wrong, but I don't just mean in a morally despicable way. I mean wrong all over. It was…You know when you go shopping for jeans?"

"Uh…" Luke wasn't sure what answer he was expected to give, or even if he was supposed to answer at all. "Yes?"

Lorelai nodded madly. "Well, if life's ideal, you take the time to shop. You pick out a couple of different styles and colors, and even different sizes, and then you go into the dressing room and shimmy and squeeze and agonize over how awful your butt looks no matter how you pose. But sometimes you're in a hurry, and that's when you run into the store and you just grab a pair that you think will work. You know, they're the same label and the same size as ones you've worn before, and you don't take the time to try them on because you've got to get to the restaurant supply store and pick up a set of baking pans and then run to the bank and still get home in time to see a _News Radio_ marathon. But when you finally put the jeans on, they aren't right at all. Technically they fit, but they just aren't right. Either the manufacturer changed materials, or they're trying to cut down on expenses and trimmed back on the seam allowances, but they aren't right. They don't feel right. If you were only going by the label, they should be perfect. But they're not. They're wrong."

"O…kay," Luke drawled out, shaking his head slightly while trying to follow her shopping logic.

She blew air out of her mouth impatiently. "See? On paper, my ideal match should be Christopher. We have the same background, went to the same schools, understand the same jokes. We've got _Rory _between us, for God's sake. He should be the perfect pair of jeans, but he's not. I brought him home and thought he'd fit, but I was delusional. He doesn't fit at all."

Luke was scrambling to find some sort of angle that would throw caution at her speedy resolution. "Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue that he's your dream match, Lorelai. I'm not that masochistic. But just because you say he's not right for you after all doesn't mean that I am. And it certainly doesn't mean that this is a decision you need to make immediately. Slow it down. For once don't jump."

"But I know it, Luke! I do! I always did – I just got off track with the April stuff. But I know who's in my heart and who should be in my house, and I don't need extra time or pro/con lists or some fantasy trip to Paris to settle it. You fit, Luke. You always have. Face it, you even make my butt look phenomenal."

He couldn't stop his lips twitching up into smile. "I'd say that's something you've always done pretty well all on your own."

"Just say you see what I'm saying." Lorelai scrunched her eyes closed and balled up her fists, putting everything she had into her words. "It's you and me, Babe. Always has been. _Please_ say you see it."

"Of course I see it. But maybe that's because it's exactly what I want to see." He shook his head in frustration, because it was tempting, oh-so-tempting, to take her at her word and go on from there. But where would that land them in another six months? "Look, for now, let's just agree that nothing's getting settled tonight. Tonight we just talk, OK? There's no deadline hanging over our heads that demands a resolution immediately. We can take all the time we need to set things straight between us."

Under the covers he felt her grow distant. "That sounds like a polite dust-off to me."

"Weren't you listening to me before? I'm not polite, remember?" he growled at her, trying to tease. He sighed again and leaned further back into the couch, bringing her along with him. "I just think that both of us are dealing with a lot of hurt, a lot of betrayals of all kinds. And you and I both keep a lot of that inside. We don't talk about it. We cover it up instead. There's a whole crapload of stuff we should have talked about through the years that we never have, and hell, now might be a good time to get some of it out. We talk, and listen for a change, and maybe yell and fight some, and then we see where we are. And then we repeat, for as long as we need to, until someday we're both ready to take the next step. If there is next step. I just want you to be sure, no matter what happens."

"You want to talk."

"No," he said honestly, and chuckled at her rightful skepticism. He squeezed her shoulders, a straightforward hug. "But it's what we need to do. Right?"

"I guess," she agreed petulantly. Her hand rested against his chest, two layers of quilting between them. "So what's the first thing on the agenda, then?"

"Damned if I know." His eyes looked up, tracing the starbursts from the Christmas lights. They reminded him of headlights coming down the road. "How about the first time we broke up?"

Lorelai groaned, hiding her face in the covers. "Ugh. The vow renewal."

"No. Not then." He convinced himself to keep going. "When Jess and Rory were in the accident."

Her head shot up, staring at him. "We weren't together then."

"Yeah, we were. We just hadn't admitted it yet." She continued to study him, and he wondered if she was remembering the same things he was. "You were talking to me about opening your own place, and then Louie died and you were everything I needed right then. There was just a different vibe between us then, do you remember?"

"Thought you didn't like the word 'vibe.'"

"Don't be a smartass," he warned her. "Let me put it this way. If the kids hadn't been in the accident, what do you think might have happened with us? Don't you think we might have clicked earlier than we did?"

"Maybe." She was quiet and thoughtful. "But that's not what happened."

"No. They wrecked and then we wrecked. You were _so_ damned mad at me."

"And then you wouldn't forgive me," she added, sounding miserable.

"Do you want to know why?" She nodded and he explained. "Because I got a taste of how bad it would be. I felt what it would be like, if we got together and then you changed your mind. You kicked me out and it hurt so much, and we were just friends. I didn't ever want to know what it would be like to have more and then lose you. Cutting it off before anything else happened seemed the safe, sane thing to do."

"That makes me feel awful." She huddled up against him. "Why did you let me back, then?"

"Because it was lonely without you. I was slipping back into my mean old geezer persona. I needed to let you back in to humanize me again."

"Thank God I'm good for something."

Luke played with the idea of pulling his hand out from under the blanket and cradling it on her head, but convinced himself not to do it. "There's something I've always wondered, though. Right after we told each other to go to hell and I stomped off to find Jess, what did you do?"

Her body went still. "What did I do?" she faltered, buying time.

"Yeah. What was the next thing you did?"

"I…called Chris." Her voice was laced with guilt.

Luke's chest heaved with a sigh. "That's what I figured."

"He's her dad, Luke! What was I supposed to do, not tell him?"

"No. But if we hadn't fought like we did, when would you have called him? The next day? The next week? Would you have waited until Rory felt good enough to call him herself?"

Lorelai growled in irritation. "I hate that you know me so well. It's damned annoying."

"My point is –"His hand had somehow overruled his head and was stroking Lorelai's hair "—that when things go bad you turn to him. It's like an automatic response with you. I know you say that it's over; you tried it and it didn't work, but what happens the next time we fight? Who are you going to go to?"

"I don't know! Rory. Or Sookie. Somebody else!"

"Me," he suggested.

"You what?"

"You come to me. Even if you're mad at me. Maybe especially if you're mad at me. You come to me and we talk about it. That's the only way it's going to work, Lorelai. We talk. We face it. We deal with it. No going off and letting somebody else pick up the pieces."

"But that's not the way we roll, is it?"

"It needs to be. For us to work we need to rely on each other more."

"And here I always thought I relied too much on you," she murmured. She was quiet for a little bit, thinking, and then she chuckled a little bit in a knowing way. "You know, it wasn't just you. I did the same thing to Max."

"Max? What are you talking about?"

"The night everyone took me out before the wedding. I slipped out of the club and called Chris. Everyone thought I was calling Max, but I wasn't. I called Chris."

"Geez. Why?"

"Because I already knew it wasn't right but I didn't want to admit it. I called Chris and told him I was getting married. I think I was hoping he'd talk me out of it. Or get mad and tell me I couldn't or something."

Luke felt like he wasn't following her story correctly. "Are you saying he didn't know before that?"

"Nope."

"Good grief, Lorelai. He's Rory's dad! He had a right to know that someone else was going to be living in the house." He couldn't believe he was in the position of having to stand up for the guy. "Why didn't you tell him?"

"I don't know. Everything for the wedding was so rushed. He and I were going through one of those spells when he just didn't call. Maybe I was punishing him for staying away. I don't know exactly. I just didn't do it."

Luke shook his head. "Since you brought it up, why didn't you marry Max?"

At that Lorelai sat up, pulled away from him, and hunched up over her knees. "He wanted a key," she said softly.

"A key?" He waited for her to elaborate. "To the house?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Which is of course, a perfectly normal request when you're weeks away from getting married and moving in with someone." She drew in a big breath. "But I freaked out in my usual Lorelai way, which means I just conveniently kept forgetting because I didn't want to deal with it. And then it turned out that he wanted more than the key. He wanted to have input about Rory. He wanted to be a partner with me. He wanted to move in and act like he lived in my house."

"Well…" Luke hated to point out the obvious. "You agreed to get married. That's what he _was_ going to do, right?"

Lorelai chuckled, but it sounded pained. "Well, _you_ knew that. Somehow that fact had escaped my attention. You knew to ask about the coupon drawer. I just wanted to sample wedding cake and ignore everything else." She shook her head. "What a mess I made of that."

Luke tapped her on the shoulder. "Do I have to remind you already? Not everything is your fault."

"But that was, Luke. I let Max think until the very end that I intended to get married, when the truth was I wasn't even thinking about it. At least, not thinking about what it meant to be really married, to share your life with another person. All I was thinking about was throwing a big party. What was going to happen the day after the wedding wasn't even on my radar."

"That might all be true, Lorelai, but he jumped in and asked you when you weren't ready. You hadn't even dated that long. Why was he in such a rush to get you to the altar, anyway?"

"To the chuppah, actually," Lorelai pointed out, and then groaned, hiding her face against his shoulder. "We had this huge fight. Over you as a matter of fact."

"Oh, come on!"

"No, we did. Remember you came over that night to pick up Bert, right before Max got there? Well, after you left we really got into it. He thought you and I been together, and bam! Before you knew it, we were yelling and flinging all sorts of accusations at each other. I thought we should break up, and he thought we should get married. Then the next day he sent over all of the daisies, and it was so incredibly romantic I had to say yes. What else could I do, right? Did you ever hear a crazier reason to get married?"

Luke had, actually, but he didn't want to divert from their current topic. "Do you want to hear something crazier?" he asked instead, looking up at the ceiling. He barely waited for Lorelai to nod. "The reason I came over that night was to talk to you. To tell you that Rachel left."

"I remember," she murmured sympathetically.

He shifted to look at her. "She left because she said I was in love with you. I think I was going to tell you, but I never got the chance. The next thing I knew, you were engaged."

"Oh, Luke." She buffed her fingers against his chest, looking both forlorn and amused. "We are quite the pair, aren't we?" She hesitated a minute. "So…were you? In love with me?"

He pushed her hair back behind her ear. "Of course. Whether I wanted to admit it or not."

A deep sigh breezed out of Lorelai. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Can you explain Nicole to me? I never understood."

"Me neither."

"No, I mean, why did you pick her? Why did you like her? If I had all of the women in the world lined up together, and I had to pick one of them for you, she'd be the last one I'd ever choose. What was it about her that made you go with her in the first place?"

He was shocked to feel tears spring up in his tired eyes. Almost angrily he rubbed a hand over them. "She wasn't you. At the time that was good enough," he grumbled in a voice that was bordering on nasty.

Lorelai gasped and almost looked offended in Nicole's behalf. "You'd better explain that."

"You were dating a new guy. Again. Some other guy. Again. The guy who made coffee and wanted to take you fishing. And you decided to spend time with him. Not me, again. Him. Meanwhile, this perfectly nice woman walked into my life and looked my way. She liked me. Why shouldn't I take her up on it? You never were going to."

"Luke!" His name had become a rebuke. "Did it never occur to you to, oh, I don't know – _say _something to me?"

"When? How!" He felt ready to blow up, remembering the frustrations of those days. "Was I supposed to run to you in the six seconds between boyfriends and get down on bended knee? With my luck I would have tripped over the almighty Christopher getting there ahead of me anyway!"

"That is so unfair. So unfair!"

He jerked his shoulder, looking anywhere but at her.

"But I still don't get the whole Nicole thing." Lorelai wasn't giving up. "You married her, Luke. You married her!" Her legs moved in agitation under the covers and he put a cautionary hand on them, worried he was going to get kicked. "Why in the world did you _marry _her?"

"Because –" It was suddenly all he could do to keep himself from breaking down. His voice was hoarse and cracked. "You didn't want me," he tried to say somewhat glibly, but it came out sounding like the saddest thing ever.

"Oh, Luke. Sweetie." She loosened the covers from her arms and wrapped them around him instead. He leaned into her, letting her baby him for a brief spell. "How was I to know?"

"I asked you," he sulked, in true Indiana Jones style. "At Rory's graduation. I asked you if I should go on the cruise."

"Yes, you did," Lorelai said, sounding like she was talking to a toddler. "And since I thought you liked her, even though I couldn't fathom why, but since I was your friend and wanted you to be happy, I gave you the push I thought you needed to go. If you didn't want to go, if you wanted me to tell you not to go, you should have given me a clue!" Abruptly she stopped the mothering and smacked his arm.

"Hey!" he complained, rubbing at his arm. "You act like you think I knew what I was doing back then. I've had years to think about all of this and make sense out of it. At the time I was just muddling through, trying not to examine my feelings for you too closely. I figured that admitting I liked you was only going to get me a lot of grief."

Lorelai sucked in a hurt breath. "Well, that certainly turned out to be true, didn't it?"

"That's not what I meant," Luke immediately insisted.

Lorelai didn't reply. She got very quiet, and pensive in a way that told him her mind was turning over their conversation every which way.

"What are you thinking?" he carefully asked her.

"About what you said earlier. That when we fight I need to come to you, to talk to you." She sighed and looked at him, her mouth drooping sadly. "But in the past, when I've tried to talk to you, when I've tried to push, that's when I've lost you. That's when you've walked away."

"Like when?"

She sighed again. She raised her hand and let her fingers idly trace along his jaw while she spoke. "After the vow renewal. I tried to explain and you didn't want to hear it. After the accident. I tried all summer to apologize. Or when Christopher called and left the message on the answering machine at home. And that night out in the street, when I tried to tell you how desperate I was. All you cared about was that I'd gone to see Anna." She shook her head. "You didn't want to talk about those things, Luke, any more than you've wanted to talk about April."

"Do you remember what I said earlier about not being a saint? About not being perfect? Well, those are pretty good examples of what I'm talking about, Lorelai. All I can promise is that I've learned my lesson. If I act like a jackass again and turn my back on you, you remind me about these months I've been alone. You remind me about how talking is a hell of a lot better than losing you again."

She took time to draw up some courage. "I'm scared," she finally confessed. "I'm scared to push you too hard. I don't know if I'm strong enough to face the wrath of Danes."

"Of course you are," he scoffed. "I've seen you stand up to Emily Gilmore. I'm nothing compared to her."

Lorelai smiled weakly but again seemed to drift off with more brooding thoughts.

"What else?" he prompted. "I can tell there's something else spinning around in that Tilt-a-Whirl brain of yours."

"It's just, you're being so _nice_, Luke." She flattened her hand against his chest and considered it. "Are you not mad at me at all?"

Sitting with her over his lap, cuddling her against him to stave off the cold, talking like old friends: for a moment he couldn't comprehend what she was talking about. "Why would I be mad at you?"

She pulled in a sharp breath of disbelief. "I hurt you terribly, Luke. I hurt you and I disrespected what we had together. Mind you, I didn't mean to. I didn't set out to hurt you that night. I wasn't thinking about you or about us or anything, really. I was just trying to get through the night without breaking into a thousand jagged little pieces. But the fact remains that I did an awful, terrible thing. How can you not be mad at me?"

He reached out and pulled her back against him again, cradling her head where it rested on his chest. "It's hard to be mad when you think you got what you deserved."

"You did not deserve that," she insisted forcefully.

"And you didn't deserve to get pushed out of my life, and lied to, and made to feel like you didn't matter to me. Why aren't you mad at me?"

"I am, sometimes." She sniffled. "But mostly I just miss you. And love you. And want you back," she said, her voice cracking.

He held her to him and just let her cry, ignoring the way his own chest was aching with the desire to join her. "Oh, Sweetheart. Me too. Me too." He figured since she was already crying, nothing else could hurt either of them much more. "Can you tell me why though? Why did you go to him that night?"

She caught her breath for an instant, gulping and nodding, tears still streaming. "Because," she quavered, pathetically, "you didn't want me."

Immediately he recognized that she was parroting him from earlier, reminding him that he should already know how she felt that night. He knew what it felt like to be cast aside. He knew how easy it was to do stupid things when you felt dispensable. Unwanted. Unloved.

Again he just held her. "Go ahead," he whispered. "Cry all you want. Get it out." He put his hand on the back of her head, letting her know he had her, that she was safe in his arms. He remembered the first time he'd held her like this, that night on the park bench when she felt like a failure.

_Failure._ Yep, he knew how that felt, too.

At last the tears slowed, and he thought she might be ready to hear him.

"This is going to be just like the cream of broccoli soup, isn't it?"

Lorelai raised her head wearily, still gasping for jerky breaths of air to replenish what the sobs had spent. "I know I'm usually pretty quick on the draw, Babe, but you'll have to help me out here. Crying damages brain cells. Well-known fact."

Luke cuddled her to him. "It was a long time ago. You'd been coming into the diner for maybe a month or so, and we knew each other, but not all that well. I hadn't learned yet how stubborn you could be. I'd made up a batch of cream of broccoli soup and I suggested you have some, because I _had _already learned about your deplorable eating habits. You got snotty and made an anatomical suggestion about where I could put the soup."

"Ha! Yeah, I do remember." Her weak laugh still sounded like it could just as easily turn back into tears. "Classy gal, huh? No wonder you fell for me."

"Anyway, I got mad too and declared that you either ate the soup or got nothing, and that included coffee. That just made you more determined to wait me out."

"You had no idea who you were dealing with," she said with a hint of pride.

"That goes without saying," he remarked dryly. "You came into the diner every day and just sat there, glaring at me. You wouldn't even try to order anything, or sneak something off of Rory's plate. You just sat there and haunted me with the angriest eyes I'd ever seen. You rattled me so much that I lost track of how many days we'd been battling. It made me a nervous wreck. I knew I had to do something to break the stalemate because I could see you were settled in for the long haul."

"Never give up. Never surrender!" Lorelai declared, with a bit more spunk in her voice.

"So I made up a new batch of soup, but I made it thicker this time, with some red pepper flakes for spice and heat. When you came in for your regular lunch glaring session, I brought you a hamburger and fries and a cup of soup disguised as a special salsa verde sauce I claimed to be trying out as a new condiment. Told you I was ready for a truce, and I wouldn't try to dictate your diet again. You dipped the fries in it and poured it on your hamburger, you liked it so much. You told me you were glad I'd finally seen the error of my ways."

"I knew, you know." Lorelai leaned her head under his chin, and brought her hand up to lightly stroke the other side of his face. "I knew darn well what the green stuff was, but I didn't care. I was just so glad you'd figured out a way to end the spat." She sighed. "Plus, I really, really needed a cup of your coffee."

"Yeah." He smiled fondly into the dark. "I knew you knew."

He felt her shake her head. "So maybe I'm still lightheaded from the crying, but I still don't see how the soup story relates to us now."

"Because I knew the soup was good for you, and I knew you'd like it if you tried it, but you wouldn't believe me. And now you think I didn't want you, and I know I did, but I'm afraid you'll never believe me about that, either. I'm afraid I'll spend the rest of my life trying to convince you that you'd never left my heart. The only thing that had changed was that I'd gotten stupider. I was stupid, so stupid, and I didn't realize how bad things were between us. I know you'd tried to tell me at Martha's Vineyard, but I told myself that was just premarital jitters on your part; that it didn't really have anything to do with me and my actions. I thought I needed to only focus on April and make that relationship work, because you'd always be there. It wasn't until I couldn't find you for days that I actually got worried. But even then I was stupid. And you know what you do when you're stupid? You end up marrying the person you shouldn't. You end up letting the one person you should never let go of walk away."

She was quiet for a long spell, her hand lazily tracing patterns through his stubble while she pondered.

"You kept my pillow." Lorelai finally broke the silence with that observation.

"I did," Luke agreed.

"And I saw that you kept my conditioner under the sink." She raised her head to look at him, her hand rising up from his face to his hair. "Doesn't feel like you used it, though."

Luke scoffed. "I'm a guy, remember? Think I want to smell like a fruity drink that should come with an umbrella?"

"Yeah, I remember the guy part." There was just enough naughtiness wrapped around her words to make his longing for her flame. But then she sobered up. "Did you keep the horoscope?" she asked apprehensively.

"Of course I did." He wrapped his arms around her again. "Of course I did."

"And I never have to eat the broccoli soup again?" she asked, muffled against him.

"Deal," he agreed instantly, knowing when to bargain and when to give in.

Lorelai pushed away, sitting up so they could see each other more clearly in the shadowed light. "Then, unless you show me otherwise, I choose to believe you. You didn't mean to push me out. I didn't mean to hurt you. That's the new reality. But Luke – Babe, are you sure? Are you completely, totally, 100% committed to doing this again?"

He put his hands on either side of her face, and leaning forward, he carefully kissed her forehead. "I love you." He moved to her right cheek, and kissed her there, a faint hint of teary salt adding a note of remorse. "I miss you." Gently he turned her head and kissed her left cheek. "And I want you back."

With a small whimper of relief her body went limp and she sagged in sheer exhaustion against him. He gathered her close, praying that this newly forged unity between them would still be in place when the sun came up.

Snuggling against him, Lorelai soon dissolved into sleep. With his worst fears put to rest, Luke dozed off too, until his ever-punctual internal alarm clock woke him with the reminder that it was time to start another day.

Tired, resigned, but wholly jubilant, Luke picked up Lorelai's legs and maneuvered himself off of the couch, trying not to displace her too much.

"Wait, wait! Where are you going?" She clutched at him sleepily, probably not wanting her source of heat to go away. But the furnace had clicked on some time ago, and the apartment, although not as toasty as being underneath the covers together, had lost its resemblance to an ice-box.

"Thought I'd make you breakfast." He motioned towards the window, where a thin gray light was beating back the colors from the Christmas tree.

"Hey, great idea!" She jumped up with instantaneous enthusiasm and rubbed her tummy, apparently realizing it was empty. She followed him to the kitchen. "Can I help?"

"Get out the eggs." Luke stabbed his finger at the refrigerator, between grabbing a bowl and the skillet. "Don't touch the milk," he growled.

Lorelai laughed joyfully at his dire warning, knowing how far it was from the truth. "Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of it," she promised.

"We understand each other then."

She put the carton of eggs on the counter. "Yeah, we do." She moved behind him and wrapped her arms around him, laying her head against his back. "I think we always have."

Luke stopped everything he was doing. He stared at the cupboard in front of him, not really seeing it. Making breakfast didn't matter. Getting downstairs in time to open up the diner didn't matter. Gossip didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for the woman pressed up against his back, and the fact that she was here and trusting him to make her breakfast again. He'd learned the hard way that special moments like these were easily squandered and impossible to repeat. They came around once – or if you were exceptionally lucky – twice.

"Listen," he began, wanting to say it before he over-thought it. "The day after tomorrow I'm supposed to go over and pick up April, bring her back here for our Christmas thing. Would you –" He stopped briefly, long enough to send out a plea that he wasn't pushing this reconciliation too fast. "Would you consider going over there with me?"

With her weight completely against him, he felt her go still. Then she straightened up, put her hands on his arms and turned him around. She studied his face. "Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly. "I don't want to get in the middle of a family thing."

He had to look down, take a breath, get his heart under control before he could look her in the eye. And he needed to look straight at her. She needed to see just how much he meant what he was going to say. "But that's exactly where you should be, Lorelai. Right in the middle of my family."

Her face crumpled, but she fought the tears. She looked away, struggling to regain composure. "Well, damn," she sighed softly. She stepped closer, went up on her tip-toes to reach his face. Tenderly, gently, she used her hands to bend his face to hers. She kissed his lips, the sweetest, lightest kiss imaginable, but yet it meant more than any of the thousands of passionate ones they'd shared.

She released him and stepped back, smiling, even though her eyes were still glittery with unshed tears. "That may have been the best thing you've ever said to me."

"It wasn't just something to say, Lorelai. I mean it. I know it in my heart. You, April, Rory – hell, even Paul Anka – you're my family. I don't know why I had such a hard time realizing that before, that we all need to be together to be happy."

"Hold on." Lorelai suddenly dashed to the living room and rooted around until she found her purse. He could hear the contents being dumped, something jingling, a gasped "Ow!" of pain. Soon she came back, something hidden in her palm.

She took his hand. "You know how I love to be corny, right?" Something cool and metallic passed from her hand to his. "You've had the key to my heart longer than I want to admit, Luke. It's only right that you have the key to my house, too."

"Lorelai…" He started to shake his head, not trusting this to go too fast.

"It's OK." She curled his fingers around his palm, holding in the key. "You decide when it's time to use it. Like you said, there's no rush. Maybe we need to stay up a bunch more nights and talk. But I want you to know that when you're ready, our house is ready for you. Other than Rory, you're the only one I want to share it with. It's our house, Luke – maybe it always has been. So you hold onto the key. I'm ready whenever you are. I promise."

The filed edges of the key were starting to imprint themselves into his palm, so tightly was he holding it. "You'll go with me to Woodbury? We'll start fitting April into our lives?"

"Try and stop me," Lorelai said, her chin up and a bright, fearless smile on her face. "I know I barely got to know her, but I've missed her. I'll be happy to see her again. Anna –"she raised her hands helplessly and grimaced, "— maybe not so much."

"Come here with me." He put his arm around her shoulders and together they shuffled off to the dresser. He found his keys and methodically added the house key to the ring. They both stared at it for a moment, a symbol of the shared life they both desired. The universe owed them some luck, some happiness. Surely they knew enough this time not to let go. He sighed and turned to go back to the kitchen.

"Wait." Lorelai grabbed his arm. She cautiously touched his wallet lying on the bureau. "Show me the horoscope."

He saw the little bit of doubt still creasing the spot between her eyebrows and remorse scratched once more through his insides. His clumsy fingers couldn't pull the reassuring scrap of paper out fast enough.

"You do have it." Her eyes brightened while she eagerly read the familiar words again. She exhaled a gusty breath of relief. "It's still there." She handed it back to him with a smile.

"It's still there." He carefully put it back in its space in his wallet, and then he picked up her hand and put it against his heart that was beating so hard he figured she could feel it. "And it's always going to be here. I promise."

She looked at him, her eyes clear and serene. "I know. I won't forget that again. I promise that, too."

Gratefully he put his arm around her, drew her close to his side, and kissed the top of head before leading her back to the kitchen.

"So," he began once more, making the effort to get breakfast back on track. "How do you want your eggs?"

"Well, I was going to say scrambled." She grinned at him, circling a finger beside her head. "But under the circumstances I now think that sunny-side up may be more appropriate."

That was when Luke Danes, the grumpy guy, the guy who habitually growled and protested and sneered at the silliness of others, drew in the deepest breath of his life. He was going to need it. His hands felt for the edge of the counter and he gripped it for strength, willing himself, just this once, to do it. Tentatively, with his voice as low as it would go, he began to sing.

"The sun'll come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…"

The crazy woman he loved with all his heart stared at him in amazement for a split second, her mouth open in a perfect round 'O.' Then she whooped, and laughed, and clapped, and then Lorelai threw back her head and sang right along with him.

Just the way he knew she would.


End file.
